Bok discard to lead Sharks

Discarded Springbok loose forward Keegan Daniel has replaced Jean Deysel as Sharks captain for the rest of the Currie Cup.


Daniel led the Durban outfit in last year's Currie Cup and this year's Super Rugby campaign, but the captaincy reins were handed to to Deysel when he was called up for Springbok duty.


Having played in both Test matches against Argentina, the hard-working loose forward was not selected by Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer for the Australasian leg of the Rugby Championship, and returned to duty for the Sharks.


Sharks coach John Plumtree said that the decision to make Daniel captain again was essentially an attempt to take some pressure off Deysel, who deals with a heavy physical workload.


"The decision is one made for the team as well as for Jean Deysel's benefit," said Plumtree. "Because of the way we have to rehab his body after each game with the high impact role he plays, with the number of collisions he is involved in, he often misses team work which has to happen in the time that we are looking after his body.


"For that reason, my decision has gone back to having Keegan as the captain, there is no other reason behind this. Keegan is more than happy to captain the side, he is the Super Rugby captain, and that change will be from this weekend," he added.


Plumtree admitted that the competitive nature of the Currie Cup makes every game important, with not much to choose between any of the teams.


"There's really not much in this competition. Everyone has lost two or three games and it's been difficult to predict results. The Lions lost to us, but then went and beat the Bulls, but the Bulls beat us. There's not much between all the teams really.


"There are three teams on top and so it's still anyone’s game. You don't know who is going to make the play-offs, so it's almost like Super Rugby, which makes it interesting," he said.


The Sharks coach said that although his side beat Western Province at Newlands in the opening round, they are expecting a much tougher test at Kings Park this weekend as the Cape side have shown some encouraging development since then.


"I think they have progressed a lot since that first round, everyone has gone better since then but it's still tricky to pick the winners and the losers in this competition.


"Province have their strengths, they have a big driving line-out and base much of their play around the drive. We probably base a lot of our play around our phase play," he explained.


Although Paul Jordaan has been ruled out this week the Sharks are set to be boosted by the return of Tim Whitehead who has worked hard on his conditioning since being sidelined by injury at the end of the Super Rugby season.


"He's [Whitehead] built a bit of extra muscle in the time he had off, he's worked hard to get back and it was almost like a nice little pre-season break for him," said Plumtree.